GOP senator asks Senate committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. over wedding celebration funds
By Lauren Fox, CNN
(CNN) — Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah is requesting that the Senate Judiciary Committee investigate after a report that a Russian oligarch helped to fund parts of a wedding celebration for the president’s son Donald Trump Jr.
Curtis asked in a letter for the committee to review President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden’s families’ business dealings, writing that it is an essential move toward restoring trust in the government.
The request comes after the investigative outlet ProPublica reported last week that Umar Kremlev, a Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Trump Jr.’s wedding celebration in the Bahamas.
“I therefore respectfully request that the Senate Judiciary Committee launch an investigation into the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment, or access by domestic and foreign interests,” Curtis wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dick Durbin.
It marked a rare occasion of a Republican calling for an investigation into the president’s family’s business dealings.
“As part of that investigation, I urge the Committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden to testify regarding their past business dealings, relationships with foreign individuals and entities, gifts, or other benefits they have received, and any instances in which their relationship to the President was invoked or understood to provide value,” he added.
CNN has reached out to the committee to request comment.
Before leaving office, Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden who faced sentencing for federal tax and gun convictions. Hunter Biden had also been scrutinized for his controversial foreign business dealings.
President Trump, for his part, said last week that his son paid back the Russian billionaire, adding that it was common for someone’s friend to pay for a wedding celebration.
“A person that he knows — I guess, a friend of his — gave him a wedding party. That’s very common. I’ve heard of many people giving wedding parties,” the president said.
Trump Jr. and his wife Bettina Anderson had previously confirmed in a statement on social media that Kremlev funded aspects of their wedding party, and defended their acceptance of the gift, saying the celebration came after the actual wedding ceremony.
“It’s unfortunate that something so personal and happy can be recast as something political or sinister simply because of who someone is or where they come from,” they wrote in a post on Anderson’s Instagram account. “Friendship doesn’t require a political motive. Generosity doesn’t automatically come with an agenda. And sometimes a wedding gift is simply a wedding gift.”
Curtis previously raised concerns about Kremlev bankrolling the wedding celebration and spoke out on X last week about it.
“To me, it just stinks. It’s corruption, I don’t like it,” Curtis said in a video posted to his social media account.
“The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president. Nor should congressional oversight begin and end when control of the White House changes hands,” Curtis wrote in the letter.
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